Michelle Fields - Medicare Paid $120M for Inmates and Illegal Immigrants

Medicare paid more than $120 million from 2009 to 2011 for claims from inmates and undocumented residents, violating federal law, according to a pair of reports by HHS' Office of Inspector General, Politico reports.

According to the reports, nearly 3,000 undocumented residents filed thousands of claims resulting in $91.6 million in Medicare payments. In addition, 11,600 inmates submitted more than 75,000 claims resulting in $33.6 million in Medicare payments.

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Lurita Doan - Obama's Fraud

The recent exposé of clowns and mind-readers as critical support elements of government training at a U.S. General Services (GSA) conference in Las Vegas has served as a politically expedient way for Barack Obama to pretend to be tough on the issue of wasteful spending.

There can be no doubt that cracking down on a federal agency that was so misguided that it spent almost a million taxpayer dollars on a training conference (where clowns were considered essential personnel) is a good thing--especially when GSA is the very agency that determines the travel, meals and per diems for the rest of the federal government.

Obama fired three top political appointees at the agency, and put four other agency employees on administrative leave--which on the surface fosters the illusion that Obama is getting tough on wasteful spending. But, why, given all the other areas of wasteful spending over the past three years of the Obama Administration, has GSA been the only agency to feel Obama's wrath?

Obama is a fraud on the issue of wasteful spending, unless exposing that spending is politically expedient.

Consider the Department of Energy. DoE flushed away $528 Million taxpayer dollars in a failed effort to shore up Solyndra and showcase Obama's visit in May 2010 designed to focus attention on "alternative energy". As if that were not enough, DoE wasted another $2 billion dollars of taxpayer money on other failed solar enterprises. But get this: no one got fired. Billions of dollars wasted, and no one in the Obama Administration was fired. Worse yet, Obama seems genuinely proud of picking loser investments that wasted taxpayer money.

The on-going investigation of the Fast and Furious debacle, in which Brian Terry, U.S. Border Patrol Agent was killed when the Obama Administration made the bizarre decision to spend another million or so of taxpayer money to buy 2,000 guns which were allowed to “walk” across the border and into the welcoming hands of Mexican drug cartels, is another example of waste. At current estimates, the cost is incalculable -- approximately a million dollars lost, an American citizen killed, damage to our close relationship with Mexico, and yet, despite all of this incredible waste, Obama has fired no one.

Americans also pay for Obama’s excessive personal expenditures. Millions of dollars are wasted on Barack and Michelle Obama's "date nights". Flying to New York ( because Washington DC doesn't have any decent restaurants?), the expenses of Secret Service, Air Force One and NYC overtime security, costs American taxpayers approximately $ 250,000 dollars. All for one night!

Despite $16Trillion of public debt, Barack Obama does not seem interested in cutting wasteful spending. If the 2013 budget of $3.8 trillion dollars is any indication, Obama excels in wasteful spending, figuring the more the better, as he piles additional spending atop the unsustainable mountain of red ink he has already assembled.

Firing the GSA political appointees, who made some boneheaded decisions that might embarrass Obama in his dash for reelection, seems unlikely to have been motivated solely by a concern over wasteful spending since Obama doesn't seem convinced that any cuts are a worthy use of his time.

Pity too. Never before in our nation's history has our government been so bloated, with multiple agencies with multiple programs that are begging to be streamlined. Other parts of our government have veered too far from their original mission (NASA for example can no longer put a man in space but can put effort and resources into Muslim outreach).

Obama's recent $3.8 Trillion budget, which called for another trillion in annual deficit, shows just how profligate spending has become under the Obama Administration. Obama has spent more irresponsibly than any president in our nation’s history, yet he is attempting to advance a false image of fiscal accountability, by criticizing Paul Ryan's honest budget and by firing a few GSA political appointees.

Cutting wasteful spending is hard work. It is far easier, after the fact, to sack the boneheads that spent taxpayer money to hire a clown and a fortune teller. If Americans want to see some expert prestidigitation, nothing beats Obama’s ability to create false illusions or conjure up misdirection regarding wasteful spending.

He is the master.

Lurita Doan

Lurita Alexis Doan is an African American conservative commentator who writes about issues affecting the federal government.

Lurita has been involved in the business community through participation in many trade associations, membership in business organizations including the Young Entrepreneurs' Organization (now Entrepreneurs' Organization) and Young Presidents' Organization, and involvement on charitable community activities.

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Lurita Doan - Public Relations - A Public Fraud in Federal Agencies

President Obama may lack chops in many areas—job creation, growing the economy, managing the cost of fuel and food—but, he is a master at political strategy and excels in the art of misdirection.

Obama has used controversies such as the birth-control/insurance mandate in February to divert attention away from a Bureau of Labor Statistics’ report which showed that there are approximately 16 million unemployed Americans, 30% of whom have been unemployed for over two years. And, Obama’s recent defense of his so-called energy policy seems intended to distract Americans from the fact that gas prices are rising even as the economy groans under the Administration’s spending spree causing $1.3 trillion dollars annually in deficits along with a ballooning of the public debt to $15.5 trillion dollars.

It is nothing short of breathtaking that Team Obama continues to pile on more debt, continues the false promises to supporters that continued government subsidies and entitlements can be maintained, and delays any honest reform. And most startling of all, as our nation moves ever closer to a Greece-style default, Barack Obama employs his considerable political skills to masquerade his disastrous economic policies to try and fool American voters.

Americans might be used to politicians spinning reality to help them get re-elected, but we have rarely seen as sophisticated a public relations campaign as that which has now mobilized the full federal government.

Many Americans may be unaware that federal agencies have robust public relations departments comprised of both career federal employees and supplemented by one or more outside public relations’ firms. These PR employees and contractors do more than just manage federal agencies’ websites, they also orchestrate elaborate public relations’ strategies designed to highlight political appointees’ supposed accomplishments and promote the illusion of positive advances in the Obama Administration’s plans.

Taxpayer costs exceed $1 billion. Worse yet, Team Obama seems intent on pouring even more taxpayer resources into official government propaganda.

Consider that even in an era of supposedly tight federal spending levels, and even with Congressional pressure growing to eliminate wasteful and redundant programs, business is good within the world of government’s Public Affairs.

Federal agencies have been hiring even more Public Affairs and media experts, even as they face hiring freezes in other departments. Within many Federal Agencies, expensive “buy-out” policies are being implemented to reduce the bloated bureaucracy. Yet, within the Public Affairs’ divisions of the federal government, the hiring goes on and on.

Ever wonder why government agencies are spending so much on advertising and public affairs?

Public Affairs officers have been elevated to senior positions within federal agencies. Agencies are spending billions of dollars on advertising, telling other agencies and “spinning” Americans on their “good news stories”, and what a great job they are doing with the taxpayer dollars.

Government trade magazines feature large, online and in-print advertisements from federal agencies, and, in return, those trade magazines and newspapers feature puff pieces on agency executives.

Federal agencies are also mandated to sell their goods and services to one another. Yet, many agencies spend millions of dollars, annually, in conferences, in commercial publications and in promotional materials and tschotkes to market one another.

Of course, these agencies also spend millions of dollars to market the “successes” of the agencies’ leaders, often paving the way for prestigious, revolving-door, jobs after leaving office, such as the recent Jake Siewert (counselor and former press secretary) transition from Obama Administration official to Goldman Sachs executive.

Never before has a president marshaled so many public relations pieces in an orchestrated propaganda campaign, seemingly designed solely to effect his reelection. The public funds which the Obama Administration is spending on public relations is a misuse of taxpayer money and congress ought to get tough with the Administration.

Of course, these expenditures are not easily identified since they show up in a variety of places under various line items in an agency’s budget. These expenditures tend to be buried in the PC&B (Payroll, Compensation and Benefits) budget lines, or are buried in other “contractor” costs and ODC (Other Direct Costs) lines in the agencies’ budgets.

A carefully worded request from congress, itemizing queries for costs for web site development, website “presence”, online “subscription” services and contractor paid “promotional” costs and conference fees would also reveal that the widespread PR efforts of the Obama Administration runs into the billions of dollars.

A recent news report analyzed the stupendous effort the Obama presidential campaign is investing in online marketing efforts utilizing personal data collected via internet sites and mobile devices. But, when combined with the phenomenal growth in the ‘spin” people and resources employed in federal agencies, it becomes clear that Obama is managing, below the surface of public attention, to mobilize enormous assets within the federal government to support his campaign re-election strategy.

It is also important to remember that Team Obama is not bound, as other businesses are, by the same “truth in advertising” laws, designed to protect consumers. Nor is Team Obama required to “substantiate its claims”. So, instead they spend lots of time in self-serving puffery, telling Americans how wonderful the Obama Administration is and what a great job they are doing.

How much better for all of us if Obama would spend time tackling the real and pressing problems of the day—unemployment, rising deficits, rising energy prices, reduced trade and reduced manufacturing growth.

The sad part of all of this is that, given the choice, the Obama Administration has shown they would rather spend their time (along with a healthy dose of taxpayer money) spinning the story rather than solving the problems that Obama was elected to solve.

Obama has told us he has studied Abraham Lincoln and is familiar with Lincoln’s wisdom that “you can fool some of the people, all of the time”. Pity that the president’s Lincoln scholarship ended prematurely and he did understand the rest of Lincoln’s wisdom, that “You can’t fool all the people all the time”.

Barack Obama clearly thinks he can.

Lurita Doan

Lurita Alexis Doan is an African American conservative commentator who writes about issues affecting the federal government.

Lurita has been involved in the business community through participation in many trade associations, membership in business organizations including the Young Entrepreneurs' Organization (now Entrepreneurs' Organization) and Young Presidents' Organization, and involvement on charitable community activities.

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Ohio Medicaid Russian Drug Smuggling Investigation

American Tax Dollars at Work.
Two men posing as wealthy Russian Drug Smugglers get told not to put their exotic sports cars on the Medicaid application, to classify their drug business as "babysitting," and to get abortions for their underage sisters who perform sex in exchange for drugs.

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